Art featured in “(Hotel) XX” at SPRING/BREAK by Dara Vandor, Alexandra Rubenstein and Kay S. Healy

The Untitled Space is pleased to present “(Hotel) XX,” a special project curated by Indira Cesarine at this year’s edition of SPRING/BREAK Art Show taking place from March 6th to March 12th in New York City. Known for being one of the world’s most innovative art fairs, SPRING/BREAK is an annual experimental platform for independent curators to exhibit works by emerging and mid-career artists. This year’s edition, which will feature over 100 curators, revolves around the theme “Stranger Comes To Town,” a phrase lifted from the old adage: “All great literature is one of two stories; a hero goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” Works exhibited at SPRING/BREAK 2018 explore the tension between and merging of difference and sameness; them and us; narrator and audience.

Art featured in “(Hotel) XX” at SPRING/BREAK by Mairi-Luise Tabbakh, Leah Schrager and Sam Cannon

“(Hotel) XX” is an immersive installation and group exhibition, presenting the work of female identifying artists whose work explores the intimate experiences of the transient visitor, a traveler on a journey to a strange and new place. The installation is presented as a retro hotel reminiscent of a roadside stay off the highway. Travelers, lovers and drifters alike have left behind fragments of their history that became part of the hotel’s DNA, with memories lingering on the walls and each traveler’s experiences left behind through the artwork on display. Their encounters have been immortalized as imprints of visual mementos, each vividly charged with the intensity of the moments that took place in the room or in their dreams while sleeping in it.

Art in a variety of mediums including photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, textile and video present the history of female “strangers” who have metaphorically or physically left their mark. The furniture in the room additionally creates an experiential framework. The title “(Hotel) XX” is a syntactical play on female sex chromosomes, and reflects the project’s focus on the female experience through a surreal and voyeuristic journey through time.

Art featured in “(Hotel) XX” at SPRING/BREAK by Jessica So Ren Tang, Suzanne Wright and Brittany Maldonado

Art featured in “(Hotel) XX” at SPRING/BREAK by Rebecca Leveille, Joette Maue and Myla Dalbesio

Artists featured in “(Hotel) XX” include Alexandra Rubinstein, whose paintings explore how society and culture have shaped gender and intimacy; Brittany Markert, a photographer whose work explores intimacy and sexuality through dreams, fear and fetish; Dara Vandor who creates photo realistic pen drawings exploring desire, femininity and memory; Fahren Feingold, who creates intimate watercolors that give voices to women of past and present; Jennifer Dwyer who creates sculptures in porcelain depicting fragments of time or objects that may have been left behind; Jessica Lichtenstein who uses the female body as a mechanism to explore deeper themes of power, female representation, fetishism and objectification; Julia Fox who creates personal narratives by inviting the viewer to intimately explore the terrain of her mental landscape through self portraits; Mairi-Luise Tabbakh, whose erotic photographic works explore the sensuality of human relationships; Myla Dalbesio who is influenced by the examination of traditional and sexual femininity and the place where the two meet; Rebecca Leveille who explores intimacy through figurative emotional vignettes; as well as Sam Cannon, whose works create surreal universes, focusing on the manipulation of time and space.

CURATORIAL STATEMENT
“I was influenced by classics such as Twilight Zone and Hitchcock as well as more contemporary references such as Twin Peaks and Elles, while exploring the theme of ‘Stranger Comes to Town.’ My special project for SPRING/BREAK, ‘(Hotel) XX,’ aims to shed light on the varied and deeply intimate experiences of women through a voyeuristic lens. I wanted to explore the memories that any woman may have had while staying in a roadside hotel. She is a woman – perhaps a lover, sex worker or victim of violence – on a trip to a new and unknown place, a transient visitor navigating the vulnerability and anxiety that often accompanies displacement. The female experience is often over simplified, through stereotypes and the objectification of women via the male gaze. This project presents the female perspective on intimacy without censorship or glorification. I find myself drawn to the theme of the female gaze as a powerful message and means to further investigate women’s experience. Women have been highly marginalized, faced with double standards and oppression, and as such their perspective considered ‘other’ or ‘alien’ to patriarchal society. I wanted to create an immersive experience with ‘Hotel) XX.’ I was inspired by the idea of an exhibition within an installation that engages the viewer in a visual narrative allowing them to re-live female memories, dreams and fears, becoming privy to their most confidential thoughts and fantasies.” – Curator Indira Cesarine